


Three Sins

by octaviamatilda



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Biting, F/M, I shall never be convinced otherwise, Lack of safeword I would never condone, Light Masochism, Mild Kink, Physical Abuse, Sherlock is a sub, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2097882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaviamatilda/pseuds/octaviamatilda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is sucked into a seemingly uninteresting case with a British connection; feeling neglected by Watson, he crosses a line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

‘…Though use make you apt to kill me,  
Let not to that, self-murder added be,  
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.’ The Flea, John Donne

 

‘Holmes, why are you here?’

‘At a loose end. Watson is otherwise occupied.’ That supercilious tone and dismissive wave of the hand. 

Bell endeavoured not to roll his eyes. By ‘otherwise occupied’ he assumed Holmes meant she was still sleeping, since most other normal human beings would still be in bed at 5.50am. Sherlock was not included in that number. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the consulting detective slept at all. 

More than that, Sherlock’s abrasiveness was a little harder to deal with so early in the day. He made it no secret that the great weight of his boredom compelled him to be here, as though the work that Bell did was not worth doing. Almost. But in truth, he was often grateful for the help and if he could not pick and choose on which cases Holmes assisted, then it was the lesser of two evils that he should be a permanent fixture. Besides, whatever kind of pathology he dragged around with him, it was worth it. Asshole or not. 

‘Well, I don’t think there’s much here to interest you. Nothing very juicy or strange, even. 30 year old male; Jason Stanton. Single stab wound to the chest. Straight to the heart. He was working here late last night, according to the receptionist who found him this morning. No signs of forced entry, nor of any kind of scuffle. The building is accessed by key card and there’s a night watchman on the desk downstairs. So the perp was likely known to the victim; probably worked here too.’ 

Holmes crouched, feline and eyes narrowed, for all of a few seconds. Springing absurdly straight, back to standing. Hands at his sides. Customary position. 

‘Quite so, Bell. As you say, nothing particularly unusual.’ He didn’t attempt to keep the disappointment from his voice. Clipped tones that grated on Bell less and less these days. 

‘He was an accountant here, yes? Anyone within the company known to be at odds with the victim?’ Holmes was trying, at least. 

‘Not according to the lady at the desk. He was pretty well liked by almost everyone; not exactly a rising star but a steady goer. Nice guy, polite. Not really the sort to be stacking up corporate enemies like they’re going out of fashion.’

Holmes didn’t appear to be listening as he flitted about the room, memorising the minutiae of the sunlit office that seemed of the least importance to everyone but him, but Bell knew he had heard. The consulting detective nodded curtly in acknowledgement. 

‘Almost everyone.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You said ‘almost everyone’. I take it there was someone within the unfortunate Mr Stanton’s working environment with whom he did not see eye to eye.’

‘Uh, yeah. A Hugh Matthews, British guy. Close colleague of the deceased. The department manager we interviewed just now claimed that there was some ‘bad blood’ between them. His words.’

A raised eyebrow from Sherlock. 

Bell continued. ‘Apparently they’d been working together for a few years, since Matthews arrived at the company as a newbie. They became good friends. But once a promotion came up for grabs and Stanton beat Matthews to it, their relationship soured. They hardly spoke any more. Matthews even tried to get Stanton fired based on some false accusations of fiddling the books; Stanton was exonerated and Matthews just about clung onto his job.’

‘Bad blood, indeed. But rather petty.’

‘Which is what I thought. Hardly a reason to kill the guy.’

‘As any reasonable mind would agree. But I’ve met with thinner motives for murder.’ A quirk of the mouth, displaying Holmes’ distaste. 

‘Well right now, he’s the only suspect we’ve got. We’re hauling him in this morning.’


	2. Chapter 2

‘Was that Marcus?’ Joan looked up from her computer, removing her glasses. Dark hair a glossy curtain. 

‘Yes’. Holmes put down the phone. ‘Our only suspect just mired himself a little deeper in the mud. The officers detailed to go to his residence and bring him in for questioning found his apartment empty and a portion of his belongings gone. He didn’t turn up for work this morning and his phone is dead.’

‘One way guaranteed to make you look guilty…’

‘Hmm, quite. His sister, as luck would have it, also lives in New York. I’m off to question her. Would you care to accompany me?’

‘Oh, I can’t. In fact, I’m going to be busy all weekend. My parents are in town.’ His suggestion that she should try defusing one of his practice bombs had met with less reluctance than was currently oozing from her every pore. 

Sherlock had as little advice to offer her on parental/filial relationships as he did on the best way to julienne a tomato. Ever aware of his limits, he plumped for scant comfort and a practical offering. 

‘Well, text me if you change your mind. Your help is always appreciated.’

A small smile and her soft voice. ‘Thanks, Sherlock.’

 

The hallway was small but quite light, pleasant. An unsolvable enigma this wasn’t, but nothing else was stilling the great buzzing in his mind and simple footwork like this would calm it. A soothing hand on a skittish horse. 

He knocked sharply. ‘Miss Matthews? My name is Sherlock Holmes. I’m a consultant with the NYPD; I need to speak with you about your brother.’

Shuffling from within. A muffled swearword. 

‘Oh…it’s open, come in.’

She was young, early twenties he estimated. Faintest Midlands accent. 

In Sherlock stepped. Striking young woman. Her hair was brightly dyed, a light blue, almost the same colour as her large eyes. Earnest. She was rising from the floor where she had been sat, surrounded by sheets and sheets of typed pages, and grasping a steaming mug in her left hand. She extricated herself from her fortress, socked feet bringing her to the low squashy sofa to which she gestured with a freckled hand. 

‘Sit down?’ A question. 

‘Thankyou, Miss Matthews.’ He’d usually prefer to stand; his professionalism was served a great turn by his upright physical presence. Whip-crack gestures and strong paces about the space as he poured forth his deductions. A distance was, if he allowed himself the flattery, a sure way of maintaining a useful dignity. But he found that he had descended into the spot next to her before he had thought about it. 

‘Call me Jenny.’

He noted her informality and her nervous smile. Catching a wavy strand of hair to tuck back into the pin at the base of her neck. If she had any information of use, or indeed anything to hide, dragging it out of her wouldn’t be difficult. He thought, however, that it might be hardship for him. She didn’t have a malevolent bone in her body, he was certain. 

‘So, what’s happened? Is Hugh in trouble?’

His direct gaze. ‘It seems highly likely. We’re investigating the murder of one of his colleagues at the Beckwith Accountancy Firm. Your brother, as our prime and only suspect, has absconded from his apartment as of this morning. You can understand why we are keen to find him.’

‘Murder? Christ…’ Placing her mug down on the dark wood side table butted against the sofa, she sighed the blasphemy through pale lips. ‘And what are you hoping I can tell you?’

Her hands were in her lap. Agitated. Picking at her acid wash jeans. He could smell the bergamot of the Earl Grey in her green mug. Fragrant and citrusy. It reminded him of London. 

He looked away, for less noble reasons than to relieve her discomfort. Taking in the surroundings. Her possessions; books, books and endless papers. Disorganised but not unclean. She worked in publishing, obviously. 

‘Anything that might be useful to our enquiries. His whereabouts, preferably. I’m obliged to point out to you that omitting such information, if you have it, would be to hamper a criminal investigation. Failing that, whatever you can tell me about him that is relevant.’ The officiousness of his words even took Sherlock by surprise. He hadn’t spoken with such a raw intention to intimidate. He sounded like that ghastly jobsworth that Gregson had once tried to induce Sherlock to work with while Bell was on compassionate leave for a fortnight. His verbal crowbar wasn’t needed to crack open a thick skull on this occasion. She understood the gravity of the case. He could see that. 

‘I want to be of as much help as I can, Mr Holmes. But I don’t think I’m really the right person to do that. I don’t speak to my brother, or at least I haven’t for the last three years.’  
Her hand to her hair again. Twirling a sky blue strand around her long finger. He could see the edges of tattoos, peeking out from her loose white T. 

Sherlock frowned. ‘But you both live here in New York…’ It wasn’t a question. An implicit inquisition. 

‘Yes’. A half smile of apology. A gesture with which she begged him to suspend his disbelief. 

‘Hugh moved here four years ago and I moved here shortly after. Completely coincidental, as it happens. He came here for work and I emigrated to be with my, now ex, partner. It was only a few months past that I discovered that we lived in such close proximity. But as I said, we don’t speak. If he was ever in trouble and needed refuge, I couldn’t give you any idea of where he might go. He certainly wouldn’t come to me.’ 

‘And why is it that you are not on terms of communication?’

She didn’t baulk. Calm in her guilelessness but a little uneasy all the same. 

‘We just don’t have anything in common, as has always been the case. We’re those sorts of siblings that are chalk and cheese.’ Honest, but not in entirety. Offering the bare minimum. Conscientious avoidance, as he knew it to be. 

Her shirt had shifted a little further down her shoulder. He looked at the delicate pattern of ivy leaves inked there. Organic and just pretty. Less aggressive than his own tattoos.

‘Well, thankyou for your help Miss Matthews. If you’ve anything else that might aid our investigation, don’t hesitate to contact me.’ He abruptly ended the conversation, standing precipitously. The bemused expression on her face didn’t go unregistered. Nothing ever did. Not the tracery of purple veins on her wrists as she took his proffered card, not the separate photos of her long divorced parents on her desk, nor the way she regarded him as though he were a curiosity that she couldn’t quite bring herself to handle. 

She walked him to the door. 

‘Well, I’m glad to have been what little use I could’. Her hand on the doorknob, gripping it just for something to do. 

Sherlock nodded. ‘Good day, Miss Matthews.’

‘Jenny’. The lightest of smiles, as she closed the door.


	3. Chapter 3

‘Oh, hey, Marcus…come in’. Watson had answered the door, mobile phone in hand. ‘Were you here to see Sherlock?’

‘Yeah, I was in the neighbourhood so I thought I’d let him know what else we found out about Matthews. I didn’t see you this morning, though it was so early I’d have been surprised if you’d have been mad enough to show.’

A wan smile. ‘Sometimes I think Sherlock must micro-sleep standing up or something. But I’m not actually going to be helping out much on this one. I’m spending the weekend with my parents, who are doing their level best to take me on as many guilt trips as they can in the space of two days. Apparently what I do isn’t “real work” and there is no convincing them otherwise…’

As if by connivance, her phone suddenly started to buzz in her hand. She gave a huff of frustration, buffered somewhat by Marcus’ smile of sympathy.

‘Sherlock is in the kitchen; go through.’ A look of desperation on Joan’s fine features as she gestured with her free hand towards the kitchen door, her foot on the first stair to her bedroom and her phone pressed unnecessarily hard against her ear.

He wandered through to find the detective hunched over reams of paperwork. A strong back through a stripy shirt greeted him. Fingers twitching impulsively, skimming over the words. Bell could practically hear the cogs whirring, abnormally fast, inside Sherlock’s head. 

‘Ah, Detective Bell. I thought I heard your dulcet tones. I’ve been perusing the information sent over by Beckwith’s. Employee profiles, formal and informal sanctions, client information, that sort of thing.’

‘Anything good?’

‘Absolute and utter rubbish. Pages and pages of completely useless drivel, over which I have just spent three and a half hours of my precious time and have learnt precisely nothing helpful. We know nothing of Mr Matthews’ personal life, nor his relationship with his family; nothing of any usefulness regarding relations between Mr Stanton and his other colleagues and just as little about client liaisons between either luckless accountant and their customers. There could hardly be a more auspicious start to a case.’ Eloquent in his sarcasm. 

During his speech Sherlock had risen from his seat, as though his scorn had bubbled up and carried him to his feet. Fairly vibrating with agitation.

Bell wiped a hand over his face. Holmes was going to be difficult throughout this investigation. He didn’t wear boredom well.

‘Well I’ve got something that might just save you from any more mindless paperwork; I was sifting through the statements we collected from the employees at the accountancy firm. One details a conversation the witness had with Hugh Matthews. Matthews told this guy that he had recently split from his girlfriend; it wasn’t a good break up. The witness says that Matthews called her a ‘spiteful bitch’ on more than one occasion.’

‘An increasingly unsavoury character, our Mr Matthews.’

‘Hmm. I’ve just got back from speaking to her; Miss Anna Strallen.’ He glanced at his notebook. ‘She didn’t have anything positive to say about him either. Wouldn’t go into much detail about why the relationship broke down but she said that he was often verbally aggressive, though he never laid a hand on her. I got the feeling she wasn’t being entirely frank, especially when I asked her if she had seen or spoken to him recently. Thought perhaps you could go and talk with her. You’ve a certain way with words…’

A Cheshire grin. Unexpectedly sincere. Sherlock shrugged into his dark suit jacket, heading for the door in long strides. 

 

High maintenance. The first words that sprang, unbidden, to Sherlock’s mind when he saw Miss Strallen. Severely overplucked eyebrows and dreadful peroxide hair. Painfully thin and looking as though she bathed in makeup. Jealous shrew. 

He was rarely wrong when it came to snap judgements about people whom he met only briefly; he wouldn’t be a very good detective if he couldn’t rely on his sharp deductive capabilities. Today, they couldn’t but serve him faithfully faced with such a caricature of a woman.

‘Hello. Do I know you?’ Feet wide in her doorway, arms crossed. Defensive. 

‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. I’m a consultant with the NYPD.’ The familiar explanation. Usually it hardened the lines of the face, increased the defiance of the posture. But this witness, softened. Expelled her breath with a sigh that made even the detective faintly uncomfortable. 

‘Oh, how can I help you?’ Arms uncrossed and her hand came to her straightened hair. Coy, or a facsimile of it. His accent, he realised, was the stimulus to which she was reacting with such violent artifice. He wasn’t certain that she had even heard his words and absorbed their meaning. British men were her poison of choice, apparently. 

‘I’m here to speak to you about Hugh Matthews. I understand you were lately involved in a relationship with him.’

The pretence fell away like the decaying skin of a snake. Predictable. Her lips lost their contrived pout.

‘I’ve already spoken to one of you about him. I told him everything I know; there really isn’t anything else to talk about.’

She made to close the white painted door, but Sherlock placed his hand perilously on the jamb. 

‘I know that you’ve already been interviewed by Detective Bell, but I know that you diligently omitted the affair that Hugh was conducting while he was involved with you.’ His voice raised, but conciliatory as he could manage. ‘This might impact greatly on our investigation. If we know the identity of the woman in question, and where she is, we may find him. I need not remind you that a murder case currently hinges on our locating Mr Matthews.’

Halted in the imminent crushing of Sherlock’s fingers, she struggled internally for a moment. She gave the bare minimum, but it was enough.

‘Yes, there was an affair. Her name was Amy Barber, an old friend of his from back home. We broke up a week ago when I found out; I pressed him and he confessed. I haven’t spoken to him since then; he was supposed to have called round yesterday to pick up some of his stuff but he didn’t show. That’s it, ok? Now, leave me alone.’

Slamming the wood back into the frame, not ensuring that Sherlock had first removed his hand, the conversation was concluded. Most instructive. 

‘Thank you, Miss Strallen.’ Speaking through the closed door, the detective clenched his hand at his side, thankful (not for the first time) for his quick reflexes.


	4. Chapter 4

On his way in Sherlock bumped into Joan, unusually agitated, on her way out of the brownstone. 

‘I’m not to have your assistance this afternoon?’

‘I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, being simultaneously a dancing bear and whipping boy for my parents really isn’t my idea of fun. Besides, this seems like a pretty simple case; I know you can field this one on your own. If you really need me though, just give me a call.’

Before he had the chance to protest, as was his wont, Watson had flounced down the stone steps and away in the direction of a glut of taxis near the end of the street. Normally, he wouldn’t give much consideration to her continued absence, nor feel affronted by it. Often enough he would be the one to vacate the brownstone for hours at a time, pursuing some investigation or other, or else bothering Bell for cold cases that would cleanse his palette as he ruminated on work which taxed his brain a little more than usual. 

But, against his higher judgement, which was very finely tuned indeed, he found himself gripped by irritation. She was no longer his sober companion; he had not used for a long time and there was as little danger of that as there ever was. Watson knew that; it didn’t worry her unduly. In that way, he didn’t expect her to be as constant a presence as she formerly was. But he did, in a childish and helpless manner, find himself tasting the idea that she was neglecting him. Self indulgent, he knew. 

Sherlock pulled himself up to his desk in his favourite chair, shoulders tight and shirt collar loosened. Restless.

Until the post mortem report was returned, he wouldn’t have much else in the way of fresh insights to speed along the case. Time spent trawling through old news reports about other stabbings, which turned out to bear no resemblance to this his most agonising in recent memory, was profoundly wasted. Nothing unearthed. 

Equally fruitless was research into Mr Matthews past employment back in the UK; he had always been, maddeningly, a deathly dull accountant. No other evidence of animosity with previous colleagues. And without a reply from the West Mercian police, there was no telling yet what a sinfully boring citizen Matthews was when it came to criminal convictions. He was quite certain, to judge by the complete lack of progress thus far, that their suspect would turn out to be no sort of suspect at all. 

Single stick, then. Setting about his intensely victimised rubber companion with a wooden stick was a great outlet for his professional anger. Stripping himself of his dress shirt, he pulled on a light blue T found draped over the back of the sofa. Even the sight of Clyde, garbed ludicrously in his knitted shark warmer, didn’t cause Sherlock to smile. 

Almost two hours later and great patches of sweat staining dark his shirt, he threw down his stick and lay on the floor. Panting heavily, feeling the great wooden carcass of the building press hard against his pliable back. His anger had abated somewhat, but he knew that tonight he would be as fidgety as had been the case in a long while. Watson had texted, surprisingly perfunctory, to say that she wouldn’t return until a late hour. Dinner and theatre with the parents. Tedious. Though a necessary fiction, he conceded. To maintain cordial relations with one’s parents required some effort, and the detective had never really been afforded that opportunity, even as a young man. He suspected he wouldn’t have grasped the opportunity if he had. 

Tonight would be the night for surrendering to baser impulses; he had set his mind to it. Normally, he would sidestep alcohol as though it was heroin. Addled the brain. Quite treasonously, he felt. But signally lacking the sort of willpower that would stop a (well deserved) bout of self pity, he decided he would a hit a bar or two. Maybe an assignation. He grinned.

 

Obnoxious club music bled into his nerve endings: painful and real and allowing him to bathe in anonymity. But turning off his whirring brain was not proving possible; before he had set more than three paces into the place, he had spied a young man trying to offload his stash of ecstasy, a middle aged woman in love with her female best friend and two separate couples engaging in extra marital affairs. Tiresome. 

Pulling up to the shiny black glass of the bar, he ordered a whiskey, downed it and promptly asked for another. That burn…it singed his lips, his gullet, his lungs. And then a slow deep scalding feeling in his largely empty stomach. He felt the weight of someone’s gaze on his right; if it was a woman like most of those that approached him, he wasn’t interested. Bold women didn’t produce an aversion in him. On the contrary, he got a kick from being so vigorously pursued. But more often than not they were brassy, too loud and usually a little too old for his tastes. And if it was a man, as occasionally occurred, his few instances of experimentation with his own sex didn’t end in an affirmation of such an inclination. Men were unsubtle in a way that dampened his desire, women were unsubtle in a way that stoked it. 

He looked to his right. Surprise must have registered on his face; he was met with an amused smile and wavy blue hair schooled into soft curls and held in a messy up-do. He gave the smallest acknowledgement of her wordless greeting, though he was undecided whether he ought to approach. She decided for him. Miss Matthews moved over, placing her drink down gently. A little tipsy. Not drunk. Two measures of spirits at most, he estimated. 

‘Hello Mr Holmes. I didn’t know you drank here?’ It almost sounded like an accusation. 

‘Normally, I don’t drink at all. But every now and then I feel the need to let down my hair, so to speak.’

‘I know exactly what you mean. Though I would have thought that in your line of work taking to drink would be more common.’

Smiling earnestly, not teasing. Though he wasn’t willing to take her point without argument. 

‘Ah, no. There you are quite wrong. At least when it comes to this particular detective’, he gestured to himself, ‘there is almost no substance misuse involved. It dulls the senses.’

She neglected to seize on the ‘almost’. 

‘Well then, you must be very skilled at compartmentalising what you see. Shutting down your horror, revulsion…or I suppose your intrigue in matters morbid. You spend your time with the worst things that people do to each other. Does it never unsettle you?’

Turned towards him, fully. Bodily. Speaking with her hands and neglecting her small measure of clear liquid (tequila?) which she almost knocked over twice. 

He stared at her for a moment longer than he knew would fall in line with common courtesy. She appeared not to have noticed the slightly extended pause. Still, very still, as she looked back at him. Genuinely wishing for his answer to be in the affirmative; that murder and mutilation and violence did leave him with rattled bones sometimes. 

But they didn’t. 

‘You get used to it. Desensitised, as you can become to anything given adequate exposure.’

‘That’s not really an answer, but it’ll do.’ Raising a fair eyebrow, fiddling with her silver earring. 

‘Sex!’ Blurted out with little finesse, even for Sherlock. He would file away this moment as one of the few times, in his socially impaired estimation, that he felt he had ever looked stupid. 

‘Pardon?’ She hadn’t closed the hatches just yet. 

‘Sex?’ This time a question. Not, at present, a request. 

‘What on earth are you talking about?

‘I’m asking you if you want to engage in coitus with me. Tonight. No strings. Just copulation.’

If he was a man given to mirth he might have stifled a laugh at the expression on her face. 

‘You’re an attractive young woman, Miss Matthews. You must get propositioned on a regular basis. Have no concerns; I am not dangerous, given to stalking or to ungentlemanly conduct. If you say no, I’ll take you at your answer and leave the matter alone. So?’ 

Somehow he hoped that talking at her in his rapid way might give her time to form an answer. Evidently she was struggling a little with what was happening but she continued to regard him openly, without defensiveness. Bemused and secretly pleased, he’d say. 

‘Sherlock…’ the first time that evening that she had used his given name, ‘I’m very flattered by your offer and I’m sure you can tell that I’m tempted, but I don’t think it would be very wise. You’re investigating a murder that involves my brother. Ethical conundrums aside, wouldn’t you get into trouble?’

‘Miss Matthews, I…’

‘For goodness’ sake, call me Jenny! You just laid an offer of no strings attached sex on the table and you’re still calling me Miss Matthews.’ An exasperated laugh. 

‘Jenny. I am not a police officer; I’m a consultant with the NYPD, working closely with the precinct run by Captain Thomas Gregson. I am investigating the murder of Jason Stanton, believed to have been killed by your brother. I am heavily involved in the case. But I am not a badge wearing, gun toting beat cop. I may pursue sexual relations with whomever I choose. Regardless of discovery, our sleeping together would not result in recriminations.’ 

His breath came rapidly by the end of his speech. Never would he normally exert such effort to persuade a woman into bed with him. Sex or no sex; it was neither here nor there. Remarkably introspective tonight however, he knew exactly why he was giving so much of himself to this. He thought her beautiful and he desired her more than he had anyone for quite some time.

She gathered her bag under her arm, downed her drink and righted her dress. They would not have each other tonight; he had not succeeded in changing her mind.  
‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re very attractive Sherlock, and under better circumstances… but it is what it is. I don’t want to be unkind. I’m sure you understand why I’m saying no. I’m sorry.’

She touched him on the shoulder, lightly and briefly, and then left. She had wended her way through the throngs of revellers and was almost out of the door before he turned around to watch her go. He took another drink, whatever was strongest, he didn’t know what it was, and threw some bills down on the bar. 

Cut to the quick, he left and headed for home.


	5. Chapter 5

Watson had arrived back at the brownstone and withdrawn to her boudoir some few hours earlier than Sherlock, for the irritable detective did not stalk to his bedroom, pride stung, until nearly 1am. Forgoing sleep for days on end was neither difficult nor uncommon for him. But tonight, tonight, was quite different.

Stripping, throwing his jacket, waistcoat and skin scented T shirt over the back of a chair, he stood before the mirror in the small adjoining bathroom. Only in his jeans, slung low on his hips, just covering the swell of his backside. His tattoos, familiar, his own consecrations of a body much abused, stood out against his paler skin in the dimness. Blue grey eyes. Straight nose. Good jaw and strong cheekbones, if he flattered himself. Attractive; she had said so. She had viewed him with as much of an objective eye as she could, he knew that. Conscientious and conscious of her visible reactions to a man who, ultimately, could cause her a deal of distress. 

Running his hand over his stubble, thoughtful. He sighed, fully and unguardedly in his solitude, and undid the button and fly of his jeans, shucking them off and toeing them aside on the tiled floor. Muddled, as he felt his bones to be after the swift kick she had given him. 

He never did that; almost obsessively a folder of clothes, not one to throw his garments about carelessly. What the fuck did it matter? Ridding himself finally of his purple boxers, he felt cooler and better for it. The longer he stood there, not vulnerable but chilling in the air, the more unfathomable ran his thoughts about Miss Matthews, and what she had said ‘no’ to.

In truth, he didn’t really know. Impulsive was the most fitting way to describe his actions at the bar; unlike him in almost every way. Aware, as he was of everything, that his choices seemed always impulsive and without prior thought, simply because his activities were inexplicable to most, he knew deep in his veins that what he had proposed to her sprang from a fit of high emotion. But why? 

Ha! He bloody well knew why. Disingenuous. Now that the alcohol had somewhat dissipated from his system he could be more honest with himself. He wanted to fuck her; she wasn’t Watson, but he wanted her all the same. 

 

Only a handful of hours later, at his tardy breakfast of Lapsang Souchong and not much else, Sherlock grumbled audibly when he saw that though the post mortem report and the information requested from the British police had been placed on his desk, Watson had first leafed through it and left her customarily garish post-it notes poking from between the pages. Her input was always welcome, always (he had come to find that her deductive hand was much lighter than his own), but now he was miffed. 

Recalling the annoyance on Joan’s face and strung through her soft syllables when he had hijacked her case about the burglaries in anticipation of her reading the file, he felt not a twinge of sympathy. Rather, he struggled to contain his disappointment that she should place the same frustration in his path. Stretched, arched his back. A large gulp of tea.   
While in a quieter frame of mind he might have conceded that he richly deserved her back-hander; this dull and misty morning did not bring him any quietude after last night and certainly it did not make him generous enough to admit his faults. Indeed, he wasn’t feeling much of anything except a subtle sense of underachievement. Not even ruffled enough to want to confront Watson. He’d keep his tongue behind his teeth.

Flipping through the buff file (studiously ignoring the post-it notes), snatches of medical terminology caught his eye: first, the post mortem report. Victim deceased somewhere between midnight and 3am. A short, sharp bladed weapon used to puncture the chest and slice through the aorta. Catastrophic blood loss, swift cardiac arrest….etc. A given. Yawn. Smoky pungent tea brought to his dry lips.

The report continued. Alcohol present in the blood; a fair assumption, certainly, that the victim had been out that night. The superabundance of cologne, he recalled with a characteristic twitch, was enough to tell him that. Smoker too. That would have got him soon enough if someone hadn’t seen fit to stick a knife in his tar stained heart. Bloody idiot.

But this, tastier toxicology; amount of ethylene glycol found in the body more than sufficient to be fatal and consistent with an attempt at poisoning the victim, likely through unknown self-administration. Curiouser and curiouser. If the stabbing had not occurred, Mr Stanton would still have taken his final shuddering breath on the floor of his office. His demise, apparently, inevitable. 

The universe wanted to shake her great shoulders and dislodge him entirely. And Miss Matthews’ brother, and now, it seemed, someone else, were obliging in their eagerness. Sherlock did not believe in karma or fate or divine retribution; ludicrous inventions all, to comfort imbeciles unable to accept that bad things happen to sinners and saints alike. But there felt, to the detective, a certain impetus behind Mr Stanton’s death, one that had left him with little enough luck to see him past the end of this cold week in October. 

Two people had sought out the victim, judged his life to be worth little or nothing, and those same two had separately brought their wrath down upon him. Had they been co-conspirators? Perhaps, though unlikely. Probability suggested, however, that they would be known to each other. If one was Hugh Matthews, Sherlock thought with a self-satisfied convulsion of glee, then what were the odds that the other was Amy Barber? 

 

A half hour down at the precinct with Bell confirmed Sherlock’s suspicions. 

‘You were right: she hasn’t been seen at her residence, or her place of work, for more than three days. Although being absent is no uncommon thing for her; Miss Barber’s boss couldn’t disclose too much without us producing a warrant, but she could tell us that her employee does have mental health issues that she manages with medication.’

Bell perched on the edge of the desk, scratchy plastic cup of coffee in hand. The grey liquid resembled murky dishwater. A spasmodic wave of sympathy gave Sherlock a visible tick, his head tilting to the side. 

He continued. ‘She gave us the contact details of the psychiatrist that Miss Barber has been seeing since she joined the company. I’ll go and check it out, see if they can give us a better idea of her state of mind. Or where she might be.’ 

‘Thank you, Detective Bell.’

A nod, and then a grimace, surprisingly well smoothed over, as Bell gingerly tasted and then placed his cup down. 

 

The police report had not escaped Sherlock’s attention: it was waiting for him, where he left it, beneath his mug, the dregs of his tea forming a cold thin covering in the bottom. Doubting that much of interest would emerge from the file, he was inattentive, skimming through it as he wandered into the kitchen to brew a fresh mug.

Before the kettle had finished boiling, he had thrown down the few sheets of paper and uncaringly tumbled his mug into the deep ceramic sink, not meaning to place it down carefully. It smashed; he didn’t notice. 

Out of the door, the chill biting, shrugging into his coat as he went.


	6. Chapter 6

Rapid knocking. Insistent. The paint was peeling a little around the metallic numbers.

Within were faint sounds of movement. She was in. He felt the ugliness of his mood and was not worried, just then, how unpleasant would be his words when she opened the door to him. The walk here, through a miserable afternoon, prematurely darkened by the watery autumn sun, had been brisk; an intense excitement of his jangled nerves pushed him along wet pavements and through a drenching drizzle. 

He knocked again; banged, more precisely, with the side of his fist. Fucking come on. I know you’re in there. 

‘Miss Matthews! It’s Sherlock Holmes. This is of the highest importance!’

‘Sherlock?’ her muffled voice. Concerned. ‘Is everything alright? Is it Hugh?’

She opened the door; no awkwardness in her, their last conversation leaving no trace in her demeanour. Dark grey baggy sweatpants and a cropped T shirt; slight flush. Yoga. Sherlock endeavoured not to look at her sparsely fleshed midriff.

Her expression changed when she registered the ire etched on his face and hanging in the air around him; he all but bounced on the balls of his feet, while looking as heavy as a lump of lead with what had brought him so thunderously to her threshold. 

She opened her mouth to speak; he cut her off. 

‘You have not been honest with me.’

He stepped inside before she could refuse.

‘Our interview concerning your brother was brief, and though my intrusion into your life was sudden and unexpected, I took you to be reasonably candid. It seems you duped me. I asked you if there was anything, anything, that you could tell me about Hugh that might be relevant. What you omitted to mention was his violent conduct towards you in the past. You didn’t think that at all worth divulging?’

She was still at her door, hand gripping the wood lightly and lips parted with disbelief, he expected. Turning, quietly closing it, she sighed. 

Her voice, small and weary. ‘Sit down, Sherlock.’

‘Thankyou, no, Miss Matthews.’

The look she levelled at him, raising her eyebrows with surprising disparagement, oppressed him into movement. He took the space on the sofa opposite her; she hanging lightly on the edge of the coffee table. 

‘My brother, as I imagine you’ve read, was physically abusive towards me and only me, on a couple of occasions.’

He stirred at that, lifting from his seat a little. Blood scalding his veins, his arteries. He stayed silent as she continued. 

‘It was years ago, barely out of our teens. Back then, he was just an aggressive, unhappy young man; he took out his frustrations on me because I happened to be there. Younger siblings acting as a stand-in punchbag for older brothers and sisters isn’t uncommon.’ A shrug. Her resignation to that everyday fact. 

‘As may be; but not every childish scuffle results in broken ribs and hospital visits.’

She almost had the courage to look ashamed, guilty on her brother’s behalf. Standing, she turned away from him. Stepping lightly, barefoot, to her large messy desk, where lived the photos of her parents. Stared at their frozen faces, then back to Sherlock. His eyes never left her. 

‘I didn’t want to press charges, or get the police involved at all. But I was obliged to go to hospital, and once there, well…I think ‘coerced’ would be the appropriate term. Mum and Dad were horrified, naturally, but I could see how scared Hugh was. Frightened of what he’d done, frightened of what would come next. I didn’t want to make things worse for him, then or now. That’s why I didn’t tell you. That, and embarrassment.’

Her hand to her wavy hair, smiling, with a smallness, with relief. She came back to him, then. Took a gentle seat on the sofa, where first Sherlock had talked at her about her brother and she had listened with surprise. 

‘Embarrassment?’ echoed dumbly. He understood her, sympathised. And had a superabundance of empathy. But he had difficulty in believing she was easily or often discomfited. 

‘There’s a certain humiliation in victimhood, isn’t there? People feel sorry for you, wish you well in you recovering from whatever has brought you low. But ultimately, they thank god it wasn’t them and they just can’t help gawking at your impotency, laid bare, as if you were standing naked in front of them.’

Sherlock was conscious of her leaning towards him, subtly, almost imperceptibly, as he knew he was agitating to bring his body closer to hers. No. 

‘Irrelevant.’ Shooting upright, standing above her. ‘Your feelings on the matter, nor anyone’s, should come between a murderer and the justice owed them. We both of us have a strong sense of fairness; I’ve seen it. In the way you engaged with me, last night. And that impulse, central to your dealing with other people, that spasm of culpability that you wilfully ignored, has made more difficult my task in delivering your brother to the police. If you have kept to yourself one particular piece of knowledge, what else might you be concealing? His whereabouts? The identity of his accomplice?’

‘OK, you need to stop.’ Rising to meet him, almost at eye level with the detective. 

Her own anger was brimming to the surface as surely as his; even as she stood before him, mustering her argument; tears coming absurdly, spiking her lashes. Sherlock had rarely felt so uncomfortable. 

‘The only thing you need to know is that my keeping that knowledge from you was out of concern for my brother, and to try and lessen the trouble he appears to be in. It was misguided, I know; you needn’t tell me that, and you’ve already made me feel quite stupid enough. In every other respect, I have been completely honest with you. Besides, I rather think you’re overreacting.’

Sherlock confessed himself taken aback. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Whether or not I told you about Hugh’s past, you would have as much difficulty in finding him as you now do. Violent criminal or not, he’s quite intelligent enough to evade detection if he’s minded to…at least for a while. I’m sure you’re more than up to the task of locating him, but your present frustration is not to my blame, so don’t take it out on me.’

The detective gaped, ludicrously, like a landed fish; out of the water, out of his depth. Never usually without words, a retort was forming even as she pointed towards the door. 

‘I want you to leave, now. From this point onwards I think it would be best that any contact regarding my brother should come directly from the police. Not their consultant.’

He felt she had tried not to spit that last word out, but her even-handedness was melting into her irritation. This had gone far enough now; too far, he knew Gregson would say, rightful in his accusing tone, were he to find out. That thought, striking him sharply and creating a swell of guilt under his sternum, hurried his steps to leave her apartment.

Professional embarrassment was what faced him roundly; for himself, and for Watson, for the Captain. This altercation, he would call it, simply must be cut dead. He had disgraced himself, this evening, last night. He had not furthered the case; he had alienated a potential witness and source of evidence.

And this; her words, her antagonism, which had sprang from his impropriety, her blue eyes…. Sherlock would lay in his bed with his half hard cock against his belly, thinking of Jenny’s pale skin and jutting hips. 

 

Ejected into the hallway, door clicked sharply shut in his wake, he stood a moment. His breath was loud in the space around him. Subtly, he heard a ‘whump’ and a faint dragging against the wood of the door. His mind’s eye, acute as ever, allowed him to see her in her slumped relief, her back flush against the painted timber. Her long fingered hand passed over her forehead: he could see it and not see it. Regret washed over him; for his part an unusual feeling. 

He made it to the end of the hallway, almost at the stairwell, before he turned back. 

 

Sherlock gripped her, hard. He more than sensed that roughness was her usual choice. Through her warm skin he felt her bones, strongly supporting her as she breathed heavily against him, but so easily smashed with only a little extra force. The vitality of it, flesh beneath his fingertips, was what he missed most, when his days of abstinence dragged into weeks as they sometimes did. 

Shuddering, writhing, against him as he kissed along the cord of her neck and then dared to graze his teeth along the soft patch beneath her ear. Rewarding. 

Stepped back a little, dragged down her trousers, her underwear; no protest. Pulled her short top over her head, mussing her hair. Normally he didn’t like to undress them: it was too intimate by far. It wasn’t his responsibility or his privilege. In this instance, it felt more than just expedient. 

She curled in on herself a little at being so revealed, though, to Sherlock’s taste, she was without fault. Toned and well-proportioned; neither altogether thin nor curvy. And the artful ink sitting beneath her fair skin. He laid his lips on it and she leaned into the touch, too familiar by half, given their only recent acquaintance. He felt he didn’t mind, too much. 

Away with her top, his still damp coat, his shirt; the last swiftly unbuttoned by quick fingers. Her back against the green painted wood of the door, this time with his weight to keep her there. She had let him in again, when he had softly knocked, though her justification was difficult to fathom. Ill feeling towards Sherlock had not stopped her from pulling him to her, mewling against his bared shoulder as he moved his thigh to grind between her legs. 

Her mouth unstuck from his collarbone; it left a cooling patch of saliva that he wished she would wipe away with her tongue, rather than letting it dry in the air in lingering fashion. The wet heat coming from her centre stole his attention however, moving as it was through the material of his trousers. Fevered hands, low on his back, toyed with the waistband, wanting to pull them down. 

Gentlemanly restraint, when it came down to the final act, was something the detective didn’t really care to affect just now: always he could read his partner well enough to know what they wanted before they could voice it, or what they didn’t want before hesitant hands pushed him away. This time, though, he thought it better to ask. 

‘Bedroom?’ His voice low and rough in his throat, his large hands in her hair. She had almost swallowed the word; her swollen lips were against his and their shared breath was nearly uncomfortably hot. A smile from her.

‘Yes.’ Gently she pushed away from the door, taking him, swaying subtly, with her to a standing position. They were still joined from knee to shoulder.

‘I don’t have any condoms, but I’m on the pill and I’m clean. Please tell me that’s alright.’

‘Perfectly acceptable’, he lied. Mumbled, atypically indistinct for him.

Etiquette, and common sense, dictated any recovering, or indeed using addict, should make use of prophylactics without exception. Sherlock’s skin had healed neatly enough that the needle marks weren’t really visible any longer, and certainly only someone who was searching his inner arms with a purpose would perhaps find them.

He knew how fucking selfish he was being. Telling her he was clean, whilst the truth, would make little difference, he was sure, if he also spilled a potted history of his drug use. She’d shrink from him, with a slightness she hoped would pass beneath his notice, and suggest they take things down a notch. As she led him, grasping his hand lightly, to her room, he remained decisively noiseless.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock’s throat was thick with words that he could not now say: Jenny, on her knees before him, was undoing his belt and trousers as quickly as she could manage, given her habitual clumsiness. Dark tea stains on her striped rug; a bit of a bungler. 

Gently, more tenderly than he might have expected, she took his hard length in her warm palm and laved her tongue on the underside. His breath snagged in his throat audibly; she smiled, not looking up at his face but at what she had of him. He was caught and she the taker. Kneeling meant nothing close to submission, or at least it didn’t need to. 

Brought through the mist of his musings, his hand shot to the back of her head when she slid her mouth down his cock, taking him into warmth and wetness that Jesus fuck…he hadn’t felt in such a long time. His fingers tightened in her soft hair and her moan, when he nearly nudged the back of her throat, sent vibrations to the base of his spine. 

Restricted, ridiculously so, by his trousers still around his knees, Sherlock encouraged her to relinquish him that he might step out of the last of his clothes. He kicked them away as Jenny rose to standing, suddenly looking a little abashed and blushing accordingly. He felt, in that moment, the stupidity of what they were doing. At this juncture, they were too far down the rabbit hole to even contemplate climbing out. They both knew it, he was certain. 

 

Impaled on him, slowly moving up and down, the wetness of their union was obscenely loud. He gave a particularly sharp thrust and she cried out, digging her nails into his shoulders. He bit back his own moan, not allowing the noise past the lump in his throat. If he could get her to do that again….another wicked snap up of his hips and she wailed.   
Her nails weren’t long; she kept them short. Obviously a biter; unresolved oral fixation. But she clawed into him with greater force, not conscious of the reflex, but it was what he needed. The painpleasurepain caused him to throw his head back and growl, unrestrained now, his eyes closed. 

He sensed her smile; pleased that she had found a button to press. As he fucked her, quick and increasingly brutal, she lowered her mouth to his shoulder. Wetting, laving with her tongue and lips. Drifting up to the juncture of neck and shoulder, she gave no verbal warning of her intention. Sinking her teeth into his flesh, he moaned, breathy but sonorous and echoing across the otherwise silent room. He tipped his head further to his right, giving her more to go at. He had to say it, had to. 

‘Harder, fuck… bite me harder.’

Almost at the point of breaking his skin and breathing hard, she forced her strong teeth deeper into the muscle and tendon. He had noticed her canines were quite sharp when she had smiled at him, talked to him, kissed him. He was thankful for them. Choking on his breath, stuttering, moaning, his hands tightening on her hips. The agony was just right; sharp, hot and starting to ache. She laid off a little, bringing her tongue slightly forward of her bottom teeth and sucking on the piece of Sherlock she had roundly abused.   
The bruise, and the teethmarks, would linger for days. Watson wouldn’t ask though. She never did. 

 

He moved more slowly inside her, coming to a languorous rhythm as she kissed her way down his wide chest. Suddenly she pulled up off him, his cock sliding out of her and snapping back to lie against his stomach. She pushed him back, encouraged him to recline fully, bringing his hands up above his head by his wrists. She gripped them tightly, pinching at the skin a little. He didn’t mind in the slightest, though he bared his teeth in reflex. 

Shuffling further back, she straddled him still, though sitting across his strong thighs, consciously avoiding his glistening cock curved against his lower abdomen. His chest heaved; she leered at him. It was almost uncomfortable, but the way he gripped the bars of the headboard tightly, voluntarily, told her how willing he was to be beneath her. He hadn’t been dominated in so fucking long. Every lingering moment that she spend hovering her mouth over his nipple, grazing her teeth over his skin, placing her hand on his throat and squeezing just beyond gently, pressing him down to keep him in place, he could feel himself detaching. He felt lighter, and yet somehow more weighty. Barely in control of himself. 

Before she went any further, she raised her head, made sure to look him in the eye. Her pupils were blown, her make up a little smudged, darkly and beautifully, around her eyes, and her lips were swollen and red. He wanted to bring a hand to her cheek, to wipe a thumb on the high colour on her freckled cheekbone, but he stopped himself. His knuckles were near white on the headboard. 

Instead, she dragged her fingertips over his stubble, dipped them just inside his open mouth. 

She whispered, a question. ‘Yes?’

An instant affirmative. ‘Yes.’ His voice was rough.

‘Safeword?’

‘I make a point of not having one.’ He looked at the ceiling.

She forced him to look at her, fingers scratching on the back of his head, unable to find purchase in his short hair. 

‘Why?’ The word came lightly. She looked more concerned than she sounded. 

‘I dislike limits. I tend to find them…limiting.’ He half smiled at his clunky words, the first bit of malformed mirth he had shown her. 

‘If you’re certain…’

‘Of course I am,’ he snapped. ‘If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t have made it this far.’ 

Her brow furrowed and he felt her stiffen over him. She was about to pull away. 

‘Please.’ His right hand shot to her forearm, gripping her lightly. 

She looked down at his fingers. His desperation radiated to the muscle, the bone, beneath her skin. She unhooked his hand from her, kissed the inside of his wrist, and placed his hand back at the headboard.


End file.
